When Dwalin Met Dori
by BML Hillen-Keene
Summary: Love can find people at the most unexpected times. But sometimes it helps to have a meddling older brother. Disclaimer: don't own.
1. Chapter 1

Love can find people at the most unexpected times.

The only problem is that Dwalin isn't entirely certain its love, in fact, its more like an increadibly obnoxious older brother elbowing him in the stomach and making very unsubtle comments about a certain dwarf who just might have the same inclinations as him.

And anyway, Dwalin doesn't have time for love. He has a King to protect and a stolen dwarf kingdom to reclaim.

And no Balin, he does not find tea, and knitting, and fussiness attractive traits in a potential mate. No siree, nope, not a single bit.

Isn't it a good thing that Big Brothers always know best.

Notes:

For this Prompt on the Kink Meme:

Being gay is actually incredibly rare in dwarrows, it is not looked down upon but rather seen as a big luck if a family not only has a gay family member but said dwarf also finds a lover (which s/he is expected to marry because how big are the chances to find another?!).

One of the dwarrows on the quest is said family member (I would go for pretty much everyone but prefer Dwalin or Bofur) - and as it turns out there is a second gay in the party (again I don't give a shit who). Now if said other dwarf were just the right age/his type/interested as well/stopped having a stick up his ass and rather take something else up it...

Looking for comedy but smut is very welcome.

I was neither blind nor stupid, and as I was so fond of reminding my brother, I had more than enough brains for the both of us. So I realised long before he did that he preferred Dwarrows to Dwarrowdams. I was there waiting when he realised the same and came to me, all big eyed and gangly youth and confessed that he found himself looking at other young dwarrows differently.

I was not ashamed, but I was unhappy for him. Because there were so very few like him in our society, and it pained me to think he would remain alone for the rest of his life. I knew he held some torch for the young Prince Thorin, which never really faded over the years. But Thorin was a consummated celibate, and seemed more than happy to live out his life as such. I realised that this was exactly what my brother anted, an unobtainable goal so that he would not have to face the disappointment of looking and never finding.

My brother was hardly difficult to read.

When the call came to reclaim Erebor, I knew it would be a one way trip, so few dwarves against a dragon. We had no hope. But our King called, and Dwalin answered so quickly it near made my head spin and of course I could hardly let my brother go without me. Mahal knows he has the strength of ten dwarves, but lacks the brains sometimes of one. So I signed my contract and did my bit to help gather forces for the journey.

Dwalin was already trailing behind Thorin like a giant warg pup, earnest and deadly, following him to the meeting Thorin had with the Grey Wizard while I waited, contracts lines up and ready for those who heeded the call to arrive. That was how I met Dori.

He came in, fussing around a young dwarf, straightening his clothes and braids and looking for all the world like a dwarrowdam sending her first child to lessons for the first time. The youngling, Ori, batted him away, took a contract from me and signed it on the spot, without so much as looking at it. Dori squawked and immediately lifted another and I waited with amusement as he preceeded to read out every last detail of the contract aloud, fore folding it shut.

"Are you sure you still intend to go?" he said fussily, and Ori, now a great deal paler, but no less determined looked nodded resolutely. And Dori sighed, lifted the quill on my desk and signed his own contract.

"Oh Dori!" Ori cried out in what might have been dismay.

Dori just waved him off. "I'm not letting you go off on some wild adventure with only *Nori* to look after you. Silly boy would trade you in for a shiny trinket when your not looking." Then he handed me the contract and said, ever so politely. "There you are Mister Balin. Just let me know when we're needed and where and I'll have my brothers spit polished and ready to go."

I told him I would be sure to do just that and watched him leave, fussing once more over young Ori. I couldn't seem to help the smile spreading across my face, because if Dori just wasn't as inclined as my brother was, then I was a goblin. How fortunate. My brother could do with someone fussing about him, seeing to his comfort, and from the looks of it, young Ori, and that vagabond Nori who had been by earlier to sign a contract, looked to need a little less fussing from their brother.

It would be a win/win situation all round.

I rubbed my hands in anticipation. I hadn't played matchmaker in a long time, but if it was the last thing I did I would be getting my brother set up and married proper, and he could protest all he wanted, and he would of course just to try and save face.

But what Dwalin always seemed to forget was that Big Brother Knows Best.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Nori loved his brothers. Anyone that dared imply different would get a knife positioned in a rather tender place. Just because Nori wasn't a traditional sort of dwarf did not mean he didn't hold family above everything else. He protected them in his own way, and while they weren't the richest dwarves in the blue mountains, they never lacked for anything, and were about the only dwarves who had not been harassed by thieves and ruffians on the roads and in the towns they would sometimes travel to.

But he was never home much, and for very good reason. Dori was a fusspot, and Nori had put up with his brothers constant harassing ways for the entirety of his youth, put up with the lectures and the hair straightening and lindt picking and general Dori-iness for what he considered to be much to long. He had never been so glad that his mother had had another child and Dori turned his attentions to him. Though Nori sometimes felt a little guilty for leaving his little brother in Doris tender hands.

Not that Dori was a bad brother, he most definitely was not, in fact he might be classed as one of the best brothers in the whole of dwarf society... or sisters. That thought often made Nori snicker before the reality of Dori's situation would smack him upside the head like one of Dori's swats about his behaviour.

Dori's inclinations were perfectly clear for anyone who was looking. Their mother was traditional enough in some things (though monogamy was not one of those things), that when she had found out about Dori's preferences she had begun to merrily teach him everything he needed to know about looking after a husband. Nori had been waved off as a typical Dwarrow, and had never learned to cook or sew or clean. Dori had taken too it like a duck to water.

But in the absence of that husband Nori knew Dori secretly longed for, Dori had turned his nurturing ways on his brothers, and over the years ratcheted nurturing right up to fussing and never stopped.

But all that was going to change, because if it didn't Nori might just actually slap his brother if those twitching fingers made a move towards his crooked collar. And Nori knew just how.

He'd been eyeing e rest of the group idly, picking them apart as potential marks, though he had no intention of stealing from any of them... well, nothing of value at any rate., when he'd noticed Balin and Dwalin. The latter was sitting, arms crossed and was glowering at nothing, while the former was constantly leaning in to mutter something and give him a jab in the ribs. Nori nearly winched in sympathy, he'd had more than enough jabs to his side from his brother over the years and mutters over the correct way to conduct oneself at a dinner table.

But then he noticed Balins eyes flicked to Dori occasionally and the little jabs of harassment took on a whole new meaning and Nori's full attention shifted to Dwalin, and he could see the faint trace of a blush on his face, and Nori felt a grin split his face.

"What are you grinning at?" Dori asked him in a wary whisper.

Nori just widened his grin. "Nothing at all dearest brother. Nothing at all." he said and made his plans to approach Balin later that night for some discussion. After all, he would need to suss out this potential husband first. It wouldn't do for it not to work out.

He and Ori needed a break from their brother too badly for it to fall apart.


	3. Chapter 3

I did not ask to be born this way, and sometimes I wish I had not been. My mother had been so very *pleased* when she'd found out, having always wanted a daughter, and she taught me everything I would ever need to know about keeping house and caring for a husband. Why she immeadiately thought of me as the Carer and not the Protector, I didnot know, but she was right of course, it was so easy to fall into that roll.

The only problem was, that though she filled my head with wonderful tales of marriage (she had had three and was quite content in each one), she negleced to say that the likihood of my finding a usband was non exsistant. I realised that on my own before I came of age, and when my mother died I stopped looking for someone like me and focused on raising my brothers. As the years rolled by I just sort of forgot about it.

I was content enough to live the rest of my life alone, once I had Ori raised up right and out on his own.

Unfortunately my younger brother was of the opinion that I needed a mate, so determined was he that he turned a deaf ear every time I tried to talk to him about it. He would just clap me on the shoulder and say "Dori, I'm getting you a husband if its the last thing I ever do." and then he'd bat my hands away from that damned crooked collar of his that I knew he was deliberately folding wrong just to annoy me.

I very much did not want to approach Balin about the whole thing, but the whole thing was becoming ridiculous. And I had caught them both whispering in corners, riding alongside each other, plotting. And really, it was all getting to be too much. So I went to Balin to ask him to stop this ridiculous charade.

"You do realise you are trying to make an impossible match." I told him, just stopping myself from wagging my finger at him. "Setting your brother up with me? What on Middle Earth are you thinking!"

Balin just smiled at me. "Why, I do believe you sell yourself short Dori. You are exactly what my brother needs. You'll soften his rough edges right out."

"Soften his-?" I spluttered. "Now see here Mister Balin-"

"Problem?"

I hadn't even heard him approach, and my face was suddenly hot, I flicked my eyes to him, but he was looking at his brother. "Uh, no, nothing. Excuse Mister Dwalin, Mr Balin." and I beat a hasty retreat, returning to my brothers and casting Nori a nasty glare. All of his snide comments and innuendos left me completely unable to even look at the other dwarf.

The thing my brother failed to realise, was that I was opposed to Dwalin at all. He ws a dwarf specimen many like me would fall for in an instant. No, that was not the problem. The problem was that I knew Dwalin would never see me in that way. I was much to set in my ways to change now, and I knew how everyone tittered about me behind my back. For all the hopes my mother had for me, unfortunately, finding a husband was one that would never be.

Notes:

OMG, Dori just went total emo there on me! So very sorry!


End file.
